In the past, watch lists management has been focussed on maintaining a variety of different watch lists. The items in each watch list were maintained and changed independently of the other watch lists. These systems are sometimes referred to as a “bucket” system where multiple “buckets” of data are maintained, each bucket being maintained independently of the others.
Examples of these “bucket” systems can be found, for example, at the URL investing.schwab.com of Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., the assignee of the subject application, in the Charles Schwab Customer Center Watch List service, found in Quotes & Research; or in the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter wireless product called “Traderunner” in which lists of securities being monitored are maintained in buckets.
Bucket type systems lead to large numbers of items in the watch lists, with little coordination among the watch lists. This is particularly troublesome in the wireless world where it is important to limit the amount of information being transmitted.
In the Palm Pilot personal organizer, manufactured by 3COM Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif., applications are listed in a master list. When a user selects an application from the master list, the application is launched.